Free opposition research? Sure. Why not hear her out? I would’ve. The meeting only lasted 20-30 minutes, and they actually didn’t talk about the campaign at all.

“After pleasantries were exchanged, the woman stated that she had information that individuals connected to Russia were funding the Democratic National Committee and supporting Mrs. Clinton. Her statements were vague, ambiguous and made no sense. No details or supporting information was provided or even offered. It quickly became clear that she had no meaningful information,” Don Jr. said.

“It became clear to me that this was the true agenda all along and that the claims of potentially helpful information were a pretext for the meeting,” he added.

The Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, released a brief statement and said they never discussed anything campaign related. She also said she “never acted on behalf of the Russian government” and “never discussed any of these matters with any representative of the Russian government.”

In other words, this was another false alarm. No evidence of collusion. End of story, right? WRONG.

NYT is very concerned that people aren’t taking that story seriously and followed up with a related explosive story.

According to NYT’s new report, Donald Trump Jr. was told that the potentially damaging information on Hillary was “part of a Russian government effort to aid his father’s candidacy.” Rob Goldstone, who NYT describes as a “publicist and former British tabloid reporter,” sent Don Jr. the email in question.

Just a couple of things that are worth noting. Emphasis mine–

Mr. Goldstone’s message, as described to The New York Times by the three people, indicates that the Russian government was the source of the potentially damaging information. It does not elaborate on the wider effort by Moscow to help the Trump campaign.

There is no evidence to suggest that the promised damaging information was related to Russian government computer hacking that led to the release of thousands of Democratic National Committee emails. The meeting took place less than a week before it was widely reported that Russian hackers had infiltrated the committee’s servers.

In other words, three anonymous people told NYT that Don Jr. totally knew the Russian government was ALL IN for his dad, and he was all for it. Therefore, COLLUSION.

Don Jr.’s lawyer provided NYT with the following statement:

“In my view, this is much ado about nothing. During this busy period, Robert Goldstone contacted Don Jr. in an email and suggested that people had information concerning alleged wrongdoing by Democratic Party front-runner, Hillary Clinton, in her dealings with Russia,” he told The Times in an email on Monday. “Don Jr.’s takeaway from this communication was that someone had information potentially helpful to the campaign and it was coming from someone he knew. Don Jr. had no knowledge as to what specific information, if any, would be discussed.”

NYT also dropped this lovely little nugget:

It is unclear whether Mr. Goldstone had direct knowledge of the origin of the damaging material. One person who was briefed on the emails said it appeared that he was passing along information that had been passed through several others.

Basically, NYT is blowing something way out of proportion again. In other words, it’s just another Tuesday.

Update: Don Jr. tweeted.

Media & Dems are extremely invested in the Russia story. If this nonsense meeting is all they have after a yr, I understand the desperation!